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A magical transformation takes place in Danielle Steel's luminous new novel: Strangers become roommates, roommates become friends, and friends become a family in a turn-of-the-century house in Manhattan's West Village. The plumbing leaked; the furniture was rescued from garage sales. And every inch was being restored to its original splendor-even as a relationship fell apart. Owner of a struggling art gallery and newly separated from her boyfriend, Francesca Thayer does the math and then the unimaginable. She puts out an advertisement for boarders, and soon her Greenwich Village house becomes a whole new world. First comes Eileen, a pretty L.A. transplant, now a New York City schoolteacher. Then there's Chris, a young father struggling for custody of his seven-year-old son. The final tenant is Marya, a celebrated cookbook author hoping to heal after the death of her husband. Over the course of one amazing, unforgettable, life-changing year, the house at 44 Charles Street fills with laughter, heartbreak, and, always, hope. In the hands of master storyteller Danielle Steel, it's a place those who visit will never want to leave. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Chapter 1

Francesca Thayer sat at her desk until the figures started to blurbefore her eyes. She had been over them a thousand times inthe past two months—and had just spent the entire weekend tryingto crunch numbers. They always came out the same. It was threeo’clock in the morning and her long wavy blond hair was a tangledmess as she unconsciously ran her hands through it again. She wastrying to save her business and her house, and so far she hadn’tbeen able to come up with a solution. Her stomach turned over asshe thought of losing both.

She and Todd had started the business together four years ago.They’d opened an art gallery in New York’s West Village where theyspecialized in showing the work of emerging artists at extremelyreasonable prices. She had a deep commitment to the artists sherepresented. Her experience in the art world had been extensive,although Todd had none at all. Before that, she had run two othergalleries, one uptown after she graduated, and the other in Tribeca.But this gallery that they had started together was her dream. Shehad a degree in fine arts, her father was a well- known artist whohad become very successful in recent years, and the gallery sheshared with Todd had gotten excellent reviews. Todd was an avidcollector of contemporary work, and he thought that helping herstart the gallery would be fun. At the time, Todd was tired of hisown career on Wall Street as an attorney. He had a considerableamount of money saved and figured he could coast for a few years.The business plan he had developed for them showed them makingmoney within three years. He hadn’t counted on Francesca’s passionfor less expensive work by entirely unknown artists, helpingthem whenever possible, nor had he realized that her main goalwas showcasing the work, but not necessarily making a lot ofmoney at it. Her hunger for financial success was far more limitedthan his. She was as much a patron of the arts as a gallerist. Toddwas in it to make money. He thought it would be exciting and awelcome change of career for him after years of doing tax and estatework for an important law firm. But now he said he was tiredof listening to their bleeding- heart artists, watching his nest eggdwindle to next to nothing, and being poor. As far as Todd was concerned,this was no longer fun. He was forty years old, and wantedto make real money again. When he talked to her about it he hadalready lined up a job at a Wall Street firm. They were promisinghim a partnership within a year. As far as selling art was concerned,he was done.

Francesca wanted to stick with it and make the gallery a success,whatever it took. And unlike Todd, she didn’t mind being broke.

But in the past year, their relationship had begun to unravel, whichmade their business even less appealing to him. They argued abouteverything, what they did, who they saw, what to do about thegallery. She found the artists, worked with them, and curated theshows. Todd handled the money end of things and paid the bills.The worst of it was that their relationship was over now too.They had been together for five years. Francesca had just turnedthirty when she met him, and Todd was thirty- five.It was hard for her to believe that a relationship that had seemedso solid could fall apart so totally in a year. They had never wantedto get married and now they disagreed about that too. When Toddhit forty, he suddenly decided he wanted a conventional life. Marriagewas sounding good to him and he didn’t want to wait muchlonger to have kids. At thirty- five, she still wanted what she hadwhen they met five years before. They had talked about maybehaving kids one day, but she wanted to turn their gallery into a successfirst. Francesca had been very honest with him about marriagewhen they met, that she had an aversion to it. She had had a frontrowseat all her life to her mother’s obsession with getting married—and she watched her screw it up five times. Francesca had spent herentire life trying not to make the same mistakes. Her mother hadalways been an embarrassment to her. And she had no desire whatsoeverto start emulating her now.

Francesca’s parents had gotten divorced when she was six. Shehad also watched her extremely handsome, charming, irresponsiblefather drift in and out of relationships, usually with very younggirls who never lasted in his life for more than six months. That,combined with her mother’s fetish for marriage, had madeFrancesca commitment- phobic until she met Todd. His parents’own bitter divorce when he was fourteen had made him skittishabout marriage too. They had had that in common, but now he hadbegun to think that marriage made sense. He told her he was tiredof their bohemian lifestyle where people lived together and thoughtit was fine to have kids without getting married. As soon as Toddblew out the candles on his fortieth birthday cake, it was as if aswitch were turned on, and without any warning, he turned traditionalon her. Francesca preferred things exactly as they were andhad always been.

Now suddenly, in recent months, all of Todd’s friends seemed tolive uptown. He complained about the West Village where theylived, and which she loved. He thought the neighborhood and peoplein it looked scuzzy. To complicate matters further, not long afterthey opened the gallery, they had fallen in love with a house thatwas in serious disrepair. They had discovered it on a snowy Decemberafternoon and were instantly excited, and had gotten it ata great price because of the condition it was in. They restored it together,doing most of the work themselves. If they weren’t workingin the gallery, they were busy with the house, and within a yeareverything in it gleamed. They bought furniture at garage sales,and little by little they had turned it into a home they loved. NowTodd claimed that he had spent all of the last four years lying undera leaky sink, or making repairs. He wanted an easy modern condominiumwhere someone else did all the work. Francesca was desperatelyfighting for the life of their business and the house. Despitethe failure of the relationship, she wanted to keep both, and didn’tsee how she could. It was bad enough losing Todd without losingthe gallery and her home too.

They had both tried everything they could to save the relationship,to no avail. They had gone to couples counseling and individualtherapy. They had taken a two- month break. They had talkedand communicated until they were blue in the face. They had compromisedon everything they could. But he wanted to close or sellthe gallery, which would have broken her heart. And he wanted toget married and have kids and she didn’t, or at least not yet—andmaybe never. The idea of marriage still made her cringe, even to aman she loved. She thought his new friends were dreary beyondbelief. He thought their old ones were limited and trite. He said hewas tired of vegans, starving artists, and what he considered leftwingideals. She had no idea how they had grown so far apart in afew short years, but they had.

They had spent last summer apart, doing different things. Insteadof sailing in Maine as they usually did, she spent three weeksin an artists’ colony, while he went to Europe and traveled withfriends and went to the Hamptons on weekends. By September, ayear after the fighting had begun, they both knew it was hopelessand agreed to give up. What they couldn’t agree on was what to doabout the gallery and the house. She had put everything she hadand could scrape up into her half of the house, and now if shewanted to keep it, he expected her to buy him out, or agree to sellit. They had less invested in the business, and what he wanted fromher was fair. The problem was that she just didn’t have it. He wasgiving her time to figure it out. Now it was November, and she wasno closer to a solution than she had been two months before. Hewas waiting for her to get sensible and finally give up.

Todd wanted to sell the house by the end of the year, or recouphis share. And he wanted to be out of the business by then too. Hewas still helping her on weekends when he had time, but his heartwas no longer in it, and it was becoming increasingly stressful forboth of them to live under one roof in a relationship that was dead.They hadn’t slept with each other in months, and whenever possiblehe spent the weekend with friends. It was sad for both of them.Francesca was upset about ending the relationship, but she wasequally stressed about the gallery and the house. She had the bittertaste of defeat in her mouth, and she hated everything about it. Itwas bad enough that their relationship had failed—five yearsseemed like a long time to wind up at ground zero in her life again.Closing the gallery, or selling it, and losing the house was just morethan she could bear. But as she sat staring at the numbers, in an oldsweatshirt and jeans, she could find no magic there. No matter howshe added, subtracted, or multiplied, she just didn’t have themoney to buy him out. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she lookedat the amounts again.

She knew exactly what her mother was going to say. She hadbeen vehemently opposed to Francesca going into business andbuying a house with a man she loved but didn’t intend to marry.She thought it was the worst possible combination of investmentand romance. “And what happens when you break up?” her motherhad asked, assuming it was inevitable, since all of her own relationships had ended in divorce. “How will you work that out, with no alimony and no settlement?” Her mother thought that all relationshipshad to start with a prenup and end with spousal support.

“We’d work it out just like your divorces, Mom,” Francesca hadanswered, annoyed by the suggestion, as she was by most of whather mother said. “With good lawyers, and as much love for eachother as we can muster at that point, if that happens, and goodmanners and respect.”

All of her mother’s divorces had been on decent terms, and shewas friendly with all her former husbands, and they still adoredher. Thalia Hamish Anders Thayer Johnson di San Giovane wasbeautiful, chic, spoiled, self- centered, larger than life, glamorous,and a little crazy by most people’s standards. Francesca referred toher as “colorful” when she was trying to be nice about her. But infact, her mother had been an agonizing humiliation for her all herlife. She had married three Americans and two Europeans. Both ofher European husbands, one British and one Italian, had titles. Shehad been divorced four times, and widowed the last time. Her husbandshad been a very successful writer, Francesca’s father, theartist, the scion of a famous British banking family, a Texas land developerwho left her comfortable with a big settlement and twoshopping malls, which in turn had allowed her to marry a pennilessbut extremely charming Italian count, who died eight months laterin a terrible car accident in Rome in his Ferrari.As far as Francesca was concerned, her mother came from anotherplanet. The two women had nothing in common. And now ofcourse she would say “I told you so” when Francesca told her thatthe relationship was over, which Francesca hadn’t had the gutsto do yet. She didn’t want to hear what she would have to sayabout it.

Her mother hadn’t offered to help her when Francesca boughtthe house and opened the gallery, and she knew she wouldn’t helpher now. She thought the house a foolhardy investment and didn’tlike the neighborhood, and like Todd, she would advise Francescato sell it. If they did, they would both make a profit. But Francescadidn’t want the money, she wanted to stay in the house, and shewas convinced there was a way to do it. She just hadn’t found ityet. And her mother would be no help with that. She never was.Francesca’s mother wasn’t a practical woman. She had relied onmen all her life, and used the alimony and settlements they gaveher to support her jet- set lifestyle. She had never made a penny onher own, only by getting married or divorced, which seemed likeprostitution to Francesca.

Francesca was totally independent and wanted to stay that way.Watching her mother’s life had made her determined never to relyon anyone—and particularly not a man. She was an only child. Herfather, Henry Thayer, was no more sensible than her mother. Hehad been a starving artist for years, a charming flake and a womanizer,until, eleven years ago, he had the incredible good fortuneto meet Avery Willis, when he was fifty- four. He had hired her as anattorney to help him with a lawsuit, which she won for him, againstan art dealer who had cheated him out of money. She then helpedhim invest it instead of letting him spend it on women. And withthe only genius he had ever shown, in Francesca’s opinion, he hadmarried Avery a year later, she for the first time at fifty, and in tenyears she had helped him build a solid fortune, with an investmentportfolio and some excellent real estate. She talked him into buyinga building in SoHo, where he and Avery still lived and he stillpainted. They also had a weekend house in Connecticut now. Averyhad become his agent and his prices had skyrocketed along with hisfinancial affairs. And for the first time in his life he had been smartenough to be faithful. Henry thought his wife walked on water—headored her. Other than Francesca’s mother, she was the only womanhe’d committed to by marrying her. Avery was as different fromThalia as two women could ever get.

Avery had a respectable career as a lawyer, and never had to bedependent on a man. Her husband was her only client now. Shewasn’t glamorous, although she was good- looking, and she was asolid, practical person with an excellent mind. She and Francescahad been crazy about each other from the first time they met. Shewas old enough to be Francesca’s mother, but didn’t want to beone. She had no children of her own, and until she got married shehad the same distrust of marriage that Francesca did. She also hadwhat she referred to as crazy parents. Francesca and her stepmotherhad been close friends for the last ten years. At sixty, Averystill looked natural and youthful. She was only two years youngerthan Francesca’s mother, but Thalia was an entirely different breed.All Thalia wanted now at sixty- two was to find another husband.She was convinced that her sixth would be her final and bestone. Francesca wasn’t as sure, and hoped she’d have the brains notto do it again. She was sure that her mother’s determined searchfor number six had frightened all possible candidates away. It washard to believe she had been widowed and unmarried for sixteenyears now, despite a flurry of affairs. And she was still a prettywoman. Her mother had had five husbands by the time she wasforty- five. She always said wistfully that she wished she were fiftyagain, which she felt would have given her a better chance to findanother husband than at the age she was now.

Avery was totally happy just as she was, married to a man sheadored, and whose quirks she tolerated with good humor. She hadno illusions about how badly behaved her husband had been beforeher. He had slept with hundreds of women on both coasts andthroughout Europe. He liked to say he’d been a “bad boy” before hemet Avery, and Francesca knew how right he was. He had beenbad, in terms of how irresponsible he had been, and a lousy husbandand father, and he would be a “boy” till the day he died, evenif he lived to be ninety. Her father was a child, despite his enormousartistic talent, and her mother wasn’t much better, only shedidn’t have the talent.

Avery was the only sensible person in Francesca’s life, with bothfeet on the ground. And she had been a huge blessing to Francesca’sfather, and to her as well. She wanted Avery’s advice now, buthadn’t had the guts to call her yet either. It was so hard admittingshe had failed on every front. In her relationship, and in her strugglingbusiness, particularly if she had to close it or sell it. Shecouldn’t even keep the house she loved on Charles Street unless shecould find the money to pay Todd. And how the hell was she goingto do that? Bottom line, she just didn’t have the money. And evenAvery couldn’t work magic with that.

Francesca finally turned off the light in her office next to herbedroom. She started to head downstairs to the kitchen to make acup of warm milk to help her sleep, and as she did, she heard a persistentdripping sound, and saw that there was a small leak comingfrom the skylight. The water was hitting the banister and runningslowly down it. It was a leak they’d had before, which Todd hadtried to fix several times, but it had started again in the hard Novemberrains, and he wasn’t there that night to fix it. He kept tellingher that she’d never be able to maintain the house by herself, andmaybe he was right. But she wanted to try. She didn’t care if theroof leaked, or the house came down around her. Whatever it took,whatever she had to do, Francesca wasn’t ready to give up.

With a determined look, she headed down to the kitchen. On herway back up, she put a towel on the banister to absorb the leak.There was nothing else she could do until she told Todd about it inthe morning. He was away for the weekend with friends, but hecould deal with it when he got home. It was exactly why he wantedto sell the house. He was tired of coping with the problems, and ifthey weren’t going to live there together, he didn’t want to own it.He wanted out. And if she could find a way to pay him, the problemswere going to be all hers, on her own. With a sigh, Francescawalked back upstairs to her bedroom, and promised herself she’dcall her stepmother in the morning. Maybe she could think ofsomething that Francesca hadn’t. It was her only hope. She wantedher leaky house and her struggling gallery with its fifteen emergingartists. She had invested four years in both, and no matter whatTodd and her mother thought, she refused to give up her dream orher home.